NOTE: Your experience with using this method may very. The streaming of media, especially movies, is very bandwidth dependent. If you have Dial-Up for your server, this will not work. You may experience buffering problems with DSL as well. The higher your bandwidth upstream on the server, the better your overall experience will be on your client.

This will be a 3 part process.

What’s needed:

• Hamachi – http://hamachi.cc
• XBMC – http://xbmc.org/download/

 
Outline:

• Step 1: Install Hamachi
• Step 2: Install XBMC
• Step 3: Setup XBMC

Part 1: Install hamachi (on Windows)

1. Go to the hamachi website and download hamachi. It is free for personal use, so on their site just click Download now. You do not need to enter any of the information, simply tick the check box and click Go To Download
2. Once it is download just double click the installer to launch it.
3. Follow the following slideshow which walks you through installing hamachi.
4. Once hamachi is launched, you will have to create a network, choose a name for your computer and choose a password for your network. 

NOTE: You will have to setup hamachi on both your server and all your clients.

Part 2: Installing XBMC on the client (Linux, Mac and Windows are supported — this tutorial will focus on Windows)

1. Go to the XBMC website and download the client for your OS.
2. Once it is download just double click the installer to launch it.
3. Follow the following slideshow which walks you through installing XBMC. If you want to launch XBMC tick the “Run XBMC Media Center” if you want XBMC to launch when you are done installing. You do not have to launch it yet.

Part 3: Mapping your remote drive through hamachi
Before you proceed, make sure both your server and client have hamachi and that they are both added to the same network.

1. Open up hamachi by double clicking on its icon in the system tray.



2. Right click on the computer which is your server and select Browse. You will be presented with a screen which is the same as if you were on the same (local network).



3. Right click on the drive or folder which you would like to map.



4. Give your mapped drive a letter and choose finish. It will now appear in your My Computer folder just as if the drive was installed in your system.



5. Launch XBMC. Click Video. Click on Add source. Click on Browse and select your newly mapped drive. Then drill down to the folder which contains your video / movie files. Once you get the folder you want, simply click OK. This is what you should see.
   
   Then click OK to complete the addition of the source. It will then show up in your Video sources. If you click it, you can see a list of all the movies which are in that directory.



6. Once you find the movie which you want to see, simply open its directory  (if that is how you have set up your server) and then click on the movie. Once it buffers the first few seconds, the movie will begin streaming. This is what you’ll see. 


NOTE: You can can follow the same steps in order to add your music from your home server into your XBMC’s library.

Disclaimer: This guide assumes that you can burn an ISO to a CD or DVD. There is no guarantee that this will work. I do not want to be held accountable for any data you lose. Try at your own risk.

What’s needed:

• GParted live CD
• Ubuntu 8.10 CD
• Windows 7 beta DVD
• iDeneb OS 10.5.4 DVD (for legal reasons I can not link to it, but you can find it on most torrent trackers ie TPB, MiniNova, etc)
• external CD/DVD drive
• USB thumb drive
• a couple of hours to get everything working.

You’ll need to download the following and save it to your USB thumbdrive:

• pc_efi_v80
• Ralink windows drivers
• ACPI windows drivers
• MacEEEPatches
•  Ralink mac drivers
•  linux-image-2.6.27-8-eeepc_2.6.27-8.17eeepc1_i386.deb

NOTE: If you do not have an external CD/DVD drive, you can use an internal one, and plug it into an external 3.5″ hard drive case. As long as both your external HD and your internal CD/DVD use the same kind of plug ATA or SATA, it should work fine.

I urge you to backup all of your data before proceeding. The method which I will uses assumes that your hard drive is empty, and that none of the data on it is crucial. The method outlined in step 0 will erase your hard drive!

Outline:

• Step 0: Partition the hard drive
• Step 1: Install Windows 7
• Step 2: Install Mac OS X
• Step 3: Install Ubuntu
• Step 3.5: Setting up the bootloader
• Step 4: Windows 7 Hardware Setup
• Step 5: Max OS X Hardware Setup
• Step 6: Ubuntu Hardware Setup

Step 0 Partitioning the drive:

1. After you have burned the GParted ISO onto a blank CD, insterted in the external CD/DVD drive.
2. Power on the eeePC and press the ‘ESC’ key a few times until a boot menu comes up (might be a different button if not using an Asus eeePC).
3. Select to boot from USB, where your external drive’s name should come up (in my case it says USB: LITE-ON DVDRW SIHW-1633SBS0)



4. When the GParted boot screen comes up, press enter



5. You’ll see an “Undefined video mode number: 317″ error, simply press enter



6. Then press 9, and enter
7. You’ll see a bunch of text scrolling by.
8. Select your keymap, usually the default if using an English QWERTY keyboard. Select Don’t touch keymap if that is the case
9. Choose your language by entering the number and pressing enter
10. Press enter again
11. Once the Graphical user interface starts, GParted will open.
12. I recommend deleting all of the partitions you have – THIS WILL DELETE ALL OF YOUR DATA!
13. Partitioning: Click New, leave “Free Space Preceding to 0, Put in New Size in MB, select Primary or Extended, and select the Filesystem.
14. How I partitioned my 160G Drive:
    • Create a 50GB (51200MB) NTFS Primary Partition –> where Windows will live
    • Create a 20GB (20480MB) HFS+ Primary Partition –> OS X will live here
    • Create an extended partition
    • Create a 8GB (8192MB) ext3 Extended Partition –> will be mounted as /
    • Create a 20GB(20480MB) ext3 Extended Partition –> will be mounted as /home
    • Create a 2GB(2048) linux-swap Partition
    • Create a 50GB (51200 MB) Fat32 Extended Partition –> all operating systems will be able to read and write to this partition, hence you can share information between the three.
15. After you have created all of the partition, click apply. Your screen should look something like this when you are done.



16. Double click Exit and select Shutdown. Press OK
17. When prompted, take out the CD, and press enter to shutdown

Step 1 – Installing Windows 7 Beta:

1. Insert the Windows 7 DVD, power on the PC, press ‘ESC’ to open the boot menu, select your external drive, and press enter (View steps 1-3 of the previous section for more)
2. Press any button on the keyboard to boot from the DVD
3. Wait for Windows to load the files
4. Select your Language, Time & Currency format, and your Keyboard or input method, then press next



5. Click Install Now
6. Accept the License terms and click next
7. Select the Custom (Advanced) method — An upgrade is not recommended as this a beta, and if you have followed the guide thus far, you have nothing to upgrade



8. Select the 1st 50G partition from the list, in my case it is labeled Disk 0 Partition 1
9. Click on Drive options, and select Format drive
10. Click next, the install will begin. A few expect a few reboots while the windows installs.
11. When windows finishes the installation, select your timezone, the date and time, and all other things that you are prompted. Once finished you will be greeted with the Windows 7 Beta screen and be able to use it. Some of your hardware, mainly WiFi and Ethernet, as well as your function buttons might not work. Step 4 will cover that.

Step 2 – Installing Mac OS 10.5.4:

1. Insert the iDeneb OS 10.5.4 DVD , power on the PC, press ‘ESC’ to open the boot menu, select your external drive, press enter (View steps 1-3 of the previous section for more)
2. You might see some text scrolling by, just wait, and you will be greeted with the OS X install screen



3. Once the system finishes loading the files (about 5-7 minutes) you are greeted with this screen



4. Select your language and click next
5. When the next screen comes up, click Utilities in the menu at the top, then click Disk Utility
6. On the left, click the partition 2nd partition, in my case it is disk0s2
7. Click Erase. When that is done, click the red circle to close the Disk Utility
8. Click Continue on the Welcome screen
9. Click Agree
10. On the Select a Destination screen, click the partition which shows up, then click continue



11. On the Install Summary screen, click Customize



12. Click on the Patches 10.5.4 Ready
    
    
    • Under Chipset, check ICHx Fixed
    • Under Kernel, check Kernel 9.4.0 Vanilla
    • Under Network, click Wireless, then check Broadcom
    • Under Fix, check FireWire Remove, and ApplePS2Controller
    • Under Video, click Intel, check Intel GMA950
13. Click done
14. Click Install and wait for the installation to happen
15. Not all of your hardware will work after the installation, Step 5 will cover the details on how to make it work

Step 3 – Installing Ubuntu 8.10:

1. Insert the Ubuntu 8.10 CD , power on the PC, press ‘ESC’ to open the boot menu, select your external drive, press enter (View steps 1-3 of the previous section for more)
2. Select your Language and press enter
3. Select “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer” and press enter
4. Once Ubuntu stops booting up, you can play around with it and test it out if you want.
5. Double click the Install icon on the desktop
6. Select your language and press Forward



7. Choose your timezone and press Forward



8. Choose your keyboard layout, and press Forward



9. On the next screen select Manual, and press Forward
   
   
   • Click on your 8GB ext3 partition (/dev/sda5 in my case), click edit partition, set Use As: Ext3, check Format the partition, Set Mount Point to /

   

   • Click on your 10GB ext3 partition (/dev/sda6 in my case), click edit partition, set Use As: Ext3, check Format the partition, Set Mount Point to /home
   • Click on your 2GB swap partition (/dev/sda7 in my case), click edit partition, set Use As: swap area, press OK

   

   • Click on your 50GB fat32 partition (/dev/sda8 in my case), click edit partition, set Use As: FAT32, check Format the partition, set mount point to /share
10. Click Forward when all the partitioning is done
11. On the next screen, fill out all the fields, and pay attention to the password! It is important that you remember your password. Press Forward
12. On the Migrate Documents and Settings screen press forward
13. Review your settings, and if all looks good, press Install

Step 3.5 – Setting up the Bootloader:

When you install Ubuntu, it puts grub as the bootloader. It detects the Windows installation as a Vista/Longhorn one, but it does not detect Mac OS X.  What you need to do is download the pc_efi_v80 archive. Unpack it somewhere on your HD. Copy the boot_v8 to /boot/ Then you will need to open a terminal and run (you can just copy & paste): 

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

You will have to add an entry for Mac OS X at the end of the menu.lst file. Here is mine (you can just copy & pastue):

Title Mac OSX
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/boot_v8

Once you have update the menu.lst file, you can reboot. You should now have a grub menu item under Vista/Longhorn that is for Mac OS X. If you try booting Mac OS X and get an error, you might want to try a different partition number. Select the Mac OSX line in grub, and press e to edit it. Instead of (hd0,4) you might want to try (hd0,1). After you change it, press b to try and boot. When you find one that works, remember what number it was, and edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to point to the right number (ie change the 4 to the digit that worked for you). You may even want to rename Vista/Longhorn to Windows 7, which you can do by simply changing the title line in the menu.lst file.

Congratulations, if everything worked out, you now have Windows 7, Mac OS 10, and Ubuntu 8.10 installed, however, not all your hardware works, and you can only boot into Windows 7 and Ubuntu 8.10. The next 3 steps will help you overcome many of the issued and allow you to boot into any of the 3 operating systems

Step 4 – Get your hardware to work with Windows 7 beta:

1. Build 7000, the beta shipped from Microsoft does not recognize the Ethernet or wifi on the eeePC 1000h. You will need to do is download the Ralink Wireless LAN drivers from Ralink.
2. The function keys for volume, screen  brightness, screen resolution also do not work by default and will need the ACPI drivers, which you can download  from here. Run the .msi file to install.
3. Once you have networking working, make sure to download any updates for Windows 7. The 7000 release has a mp3 corruption bug. You can read about it on Ars Technica. The fix is available on Microsoft’s site in Knowledge Base Article 961367.
4. If you have any other hardware which Windows 7 does not recognize, you can download the Vista drivers and they should work fine.

Step 5 – Get your hardware to work with Mac OS X:

Note: Here are the BIOS settings that ensure that Mac sees all the hardware:

• Enter the BIOS and go to Boot. Then open Boot Settings Configuration. Quick Boot should be Enabled and Quiet Boot Disabled. Press F10 to save the settings.

1. Download the MacEEE patches. Unzip the folder. Double click AboutThisMac.pkg and it will install. This fixes the information about your computer when you go to Apple->About this Mac. Then double click the Kext Helper b7.app. Select all the .kext files inside of the Driver directory. Type in your password, and apply them. Once finished, reboot your  computer.
2. Download the Ralink CardBusPCI driver. Double click it. Select the 10.5 one. Install it. Reboot your Mac. When it boots up again, you can open the WirelessUtilityCardbusPCI (inside your Applications folder). Then click Advanced.  Click Radio Off. Then click it again to Radio On.  This turns the WiFi on.  If you then click Site Survey you will be shown all the wireless networks in your range. Click on the one you want, then click Connect.

Note: In order to have WiFi you have click the Radio Off Radio On button each time you boot into Mac OS X.

Step 6 – Get your hardware to work with Ubuntu 8.10

1. The default kernel does not have the needed modules for the WiFi and other hardware. You need the linux-eee kernel. You can read about it here. Download linux-image-2.6.27-8-eeepc_2.6.27-8.17eeepc1_i386.deb here. All you have to do is double click it, install it, and reboot. Choose the Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-8-eeepc. Once booted, your system should recognize your wireless, and most of the function keys will work. 

Dualbooting Windows 7 and eeeXubuntu on an Asus EEEPC

What you will need:

• Windows 7 beta iso
• eeeXubuntu iso
• blank CD & DVD
• external DVD drive

Burn Windows 7 beta to the dvd drive. Start the eeePC and tell it to boot from the external DVD drive. Decide where you want to install Windows 7. I suggest that you chose a blank partition or that you format the one that you want to install to since this is a beta and funny things might happen. Make sure your data is backed up before attempting to install. You can get a product key by following the steps outlined by this LifeHacker article.

Once Windows 7 is installed, please download any updates available for it. The 7000 release, which is the one shipped as Windows 7 beta has a mp3 corruption bug. You can read about it on Ars Technica. The fix is available on Microsoft’s site in Knowledge Base Article 961367

Out of the box, the install does not have drivers for the LAN or WiFi. What you will need to do is download the Ralink Wireless LAN drivers from Ralink. You will also want to download the ACPI drivers so that your function buttons work. You can download the driver from here. Run the .msi file to install the drivers.

The installation of eeeXubuntu will be slightly more difficult as it will require us to manually partition the hard drive. 

Follow the video directions for partitioning. An article detailing the complete process of partitioning will be coming out soon.